Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Or are first time home buyers expecting too much?

141 replies

ifherbumwereabungalow · 24/04/2019 11:09

I think this is my first AIBU so am girding my loins to get blasted...
Background story - we put our house on the market last year and after following the agent's advice we didn't do any decorating but made sure everything was spick and span and decluttered. After what felt like a million viewings and no real offers we decided to take a break and try again. We fixed a crack in some plaster and repainted the living room and kitchen. We'd replaced the kitchen and bathroom since being here so they are looking good.
We had our first viewing with the new agent yesterday. The feedback from the young couple was that they thought it needed modernising. We live in a bog standard, three bed mid-terrace built in the early eighties. The rooms are a good size and we have a garden front and back and off road driveway parking in a cul-de-sac.
My issue is that the current crop of homebuyers seem to have very unreasonable expectations of what a house like mine is going to be like. I'm assuming that they think every house on the market has been transformed by Kevin McCloud or George Clarke and that a futuristic utopia should exist behind every front door. I'm looking at houses to move in to and my main criteria are based on the size and number of rooms and whether I can live with the kitchen and bathroom, the decor is secondary to that because I figure we are going to go in and change it all anyway.
So, am I being unreasonable in thinking that people are going into viewings with highly inflated ideas about what they are going to see? And if so, why don't they look at the photos online before they book an appointment??

OP posts:
LoopyLu2019 · 24/04/2019 12:35

I'm a recent ftb and for me I ended up in a new build because it is just put your furniture in and go. After our deposit was swallowed up by the house, we had no money for anything really and the idea of any improvements were off the cards for 6 months minimum. I have only just started small improvements now and still havent touched decorating because the developer comes in again at 12 months to fix things from settling so there's no point painting. I wouldn't have bought an older property because anything that needed doing would have crippled us financially (and we would have only been able to afford a tiny flat) so it made sense to buy a house that would do us for 5-10 years and no upfront costs for work, any issues and the developer fixes them. My DB on the other hand bought an older property, he saved 1/3 of his deposit money to spend on renovations. As a result he has a higher mortgage interest rate because of higher ltv, has had to pay for full rewire, asbestos removal (minor but expensive), new bathrooms and new kitchen because they were falling apart. He also had a leak in the roof after a storm, a faulty boiler out of warranty. If he'd used all his deposit then the houses would still need work but he would have to wait to do it and he wouldn't have had the money to do the emergency repairs. With all the stress of that, I'm glad I didn't do the same. I'm ok with not having much in savings at the moment because there's not much that I'm responsible for paying for at the moment. I have time to build them back up.

Mummyoflittledragon · 24/04/2019 12:38

Did you just replace existing things? That doesn’t necessarily translate. My ndn house is on the market. He has changed the bathrooms, doors and conservatory all using the existing structure and layout so just changed the windows / roof in the conservatory. Despite spending at least 30k he hasn’t added a penny of value to the property. The layout especially upstairs is poor, ditto downstairs so all that work is dead money. The new bathrooms are “old person” choices. The conservatory needs demolishing in place of a glass? extension and massive sliding / bifold doors. I bet he thought he’d get 50k more despite leaving the coloured living room carpet possibly from the 80’s.

In contrast when we extended our my house we employed an architect to reconfigure the whole house.

Fraxion · 24/04/2019 12:39

Mate of mine was selling a while ago he was told rather blantly by three viewers that they just liked looking at other poples houses for fun on a Saturday afternoon, they had no intention at all of buying!.

When I sold my first house I had a viewer who told me she only came for a nosey as she had bought the (bigger) house along the road. She didn't get further than the front hallway for her cheeky fuckery.

KitKat1985 · 24/04/2019 12:44

Agreed. Our first time buyers last year basically wanted to buy the house in immaculate new-build condition, but at a second hand pricing.

They even had the cheek to complain post-sale that they didn't like the curtains / lampshade covers that we left behind (as agreed on the fixtures and fittings form) and wanted us to compensate them so they could buy new ones. I pointed out we hadn't actually charged them for any of the fittings we left behind, and that had at no point in conveyancing process had they requested that we took these items with us instead of leave them behind, so was frankly confused that they expected compensation for items they were left for free.

FredFlinstoneMadeOfBones · 24/04/2019 12:46

Mate of mine was selling a while ago he was told rather blantly by three viewers that they just liked looking at other poples houses for fun on a Saturday afternoon, they had no intention at all of buying!.

Yes I've had friends with the same experience. Really odd but apparently quite common. None of them were selling spectacular mansions either. Just totally normal 3-4 bed family homes. It would drive me mad with all the wasted tidying!

moosesormeece · 24/04/2019 12:51

We knew full well we had to compromise when we bought our first place last year, because as with basically everyone who hasn't won the lottery we didn't have the budget for our dream house. The point of viewing - at least for us! - was to see what those compromises were going to look like in the flesh and what we felt we could and couldn't live with. Sometimes those things were very outdated decor which given the asking price we wouldn't be able to change for a long time. On one notable occasion there was a distinct pervading smell that we were nervous about the source of - though we weren't so rude as to say so.

Or, you know, young people these days are too demanding. Probably too much avocado on toast.

Eliza9919 · 24/04/2019 12:53

Post your rightmove link so we can see it, we can't offer any advice otherwise.

sirfredfredgeorge · 24/04/2019 12:54

The feedback from the young couple was that they thought it needed modernising

Whilst this is the feedback, what you're missing is the context.
"For the price you're asking, it needs modernising" is what they're actually saying, they probably expected from the photos and description that there was more too it, therefore it was at a fairer price before modernising.

You've over-priced it, and people don't just say "too expensive", they feel they need to say more, hence the needs modernisation.

Amanduh · 24/04/2019 13:00

Ftb has nothing to do with it. Anyone buying a house can have a preference over how they want the house to be ffs. If it’s an eighties build and hasn’t been changed since it probably does need modernising! Ftb don’t all want blank new builds. Some do. So do some 5th time buyers!! Shock horror, people have own opinions

jimmyjammy001 · 24/04/2019 13:04

Link for the house which is for sale? Then people can give better judgement.

MeanMrMustardSeed · 24/04/2019 13:04

I agree op, younger friends of ours are buying at the moment and they keep talking about ‘wow factor’. They seem to put a lot of emphasis on how other people will react to their new home - Ian it impressive enough? When we were looking at their age, we wanted a comfortable family home with the right amount of space and that we could imagine ourselves in.

Mildura · 24/04/2019 13:05

@sirfredfredgeorge

Nail on head.

NaturatintGoldenChestnut · 24/04/2019 13:12

The thing about 'it just needs modernising' that always gets me, and we've been burned by it in the past, is your mind is thinking about what you can't see. You say, 'It's just an 80s kitchen and bathroom, perfectly serviceable!' A buyer might see, 'Hmm, that means the plumbing and electrics are at least 30 years old.' 'So they've done no maintenance on this place in 30+ years, wonder what else is about to pack in?' and pound signs start to spin.

A FTB is likely to have little spare cash for even decorative work after buying a home.

I think it might be you expecting too much money for your house if it's not selling rather than entitled buyers who don't want a potential money pit for a house.

Pavlova31 · 24/04/2019 13:16

Certainly about the “nosey” viewers with no intentions about the property whatever.
The first viewers my friend had walked into the lounge, popped themselves on the sofa ,opened a couple of plastic boxes and ignoring her completely used the coffee table for serving their packed lunch whilst having a chat amongst themselves.
They then announced that they had seen all they needed to ,upped and left Confused

Floatingfancy · 24/04/2019 13:17

OIEO really puts me off

And me, it's so entitled.

WhatNowRandy · 24/04/2019 13:17

I wanted my first house to not need loads of immediate work. Buying it and relocating was stressful enough when we didn't really have a clue what we were doing. The last thing we wanted was to immediately have to start a huge renovation project. Painting walls - fine. Complete rewiring and replumming needed, no usable bathroom etc - not fine.

It was more the fear of the unknown, as we had no experience to evaluate how big a deal the work would end up being. Definitely we weren't looking for a perfect house with out £120k budget! We've been in the house for five years now, and are just now getting our heads and wallets round to having some proper work started soon.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 24/04/2019 13:25

Do you think the potential buyers may be running your house down a little as an opening gambit for negotiating on price? If so: it's to be expected, I think.

Sadly, I think this is very common. A lot of buyers seem to act like insurance company loss-adjusters (or a certain company that buys any car, so I hear) in actively looking for anything they can to justify paying you less, even if there's nothing actually wrong. House gaslighting, maybe?!

We sold a house in 2003 and the buyers insisted on a drain survey (fine). They didn't find anything at all wrong with them, but expressed great concern that they weren't specified to 2003 standards, and expected a big price reduction to enable them to 'fix' this. The drains were put in to current standards, 20 years earlier, when the house was built, and hadn't caused us any problems whatsoever.

We did eventually sell to them and took a rather low offer as we really needed to sell ASAP and the local market wasn't great at that time. I would be utterly astounded if the original 1982 drains are not still in place to this day. Demanding a discount for spurious reasons is one thing, but then having to actually use the money you 'saved' on those unnecessary repairs when you could use it for any number of other things that will make a difference to your life is quite another.

I believe this is a common ploy used by car hire firms, who somehow instantly know to check, say, under the bumper where they 'find' a hidden cosmetic scratch and bill the customer (an inflated amount) to repair it. Of course, they don't ever repair it as firstly, they want the money as profit rather than wasting it on a pointless touch-up job and, secondly, if they did get it seen to, they wouldn't be able to charge every other customer for fixing the exact same 'problem' for years to come.

I also take issue with the whole 'modernising' suggestion. Naturally, there will be properties with very old wiring, a clapped-out boiler, extremely dated and faded decor etc - but I think it's often used as a PA way of objectively 'justifying' criticism (and subsequently a hefty price reduction) rather than just being honest and saying "There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but it's not to our taste, so we'd want to change it to something we like better and that would cost money. We would rather that you pay this money than we do".

There are also people who want the 'double bunce'. They'll see a house that's priced at £80K less than comparable houses and the fact that it needs a lot of work is clearly stated as the reason for the low price. They then go to view it, express horror at the work that needs to be done, claim that it will cost £100K to do it (much more like £50K realistically) and then demand the already-reduced-to-take-account-of-it-price be reduced again to take account of it. It's so obvious that they're blagging it as, if the house truly was such a horrific monstrosity to them, they wouldn't have looked twice at the advert, let alone be desperate to buy it (albeit at a massively reduced price). They're probably the same people who would buy a £20 latest-model iPhone on eBay, labelled clearly as 'Broken - spares or repair' and with pictures of big scratches and smashed screen - and then demand a refund and leave appalling negative feedback.

As the PP said with the 'too small' room whose dimensions had already been clearly advised, some people don't seem to have any ability to home in on their personal requirements and immediately disregard options that don't suit or appeal. They don't/won't accept that, just because it's not for them, that doesn't make it worthless to everybody. I like big, spacious cars with room for loads of luggage and general junk so I wouldn't view a 2-seater sports car, but that doesn't mean that I consider such cars categorically unwanted by everybody. For some, it may just be a power trip and they get off on viewing small flats and smugly informing the sellers that it isn't as desirable as a large house.

There are people on MN who do the same with threads - instead of ignoring something that doesn't interest/affect them and just scrolling by like normal people, they feel the need to click on the thread and 'inform' everybody just how stupid/pointless/boring/untrue they believe the subject to be. They don't seem to see the irony of actively choosing to spend their time to tell people who couldn't care less (and wouldn't know they were there anyway) that they deem it unworthy of their time.

babysharkah · 24/04/2019 13:27

If FTB don't want it it's likely too expensive.

justilou1 · 24/04/2019 13:29

It's not just first home buyers... I think all buyers work out the cost of the renovations they'd like to make to your house, garden and even virtually moving the property to the more desirable area they'd actually like to live in and try and factor in the cost difference... We had people try and haggle in cost differences for things like re-doing the garden to their tastes, putting in a spa and sauna, ffs... I blame bloody lifestyle programmes and the current trend of entitlement.

BlueSkiesLies · 24/04/2019 13:30

Well, if you couldn't be bothered or didn't have the money to make it super nice, maybe they can't either!

BackforGood · 24/04/2019 13:40

I think people just have to say something. It can tick all the boxes on paper, you walk in and you just don’t like it. The estate agent then pushes you for feedback so you just say something to shut them up!

This

However, there is a whole move in "the industry" that everything has to be "fashionable" and replaced regularly. There are lots of TV programmes on about selling houses or makeovers etc and it create's a picture in people's minds what there "ought" to be.

My lovely neighbour over the road is selling and I went in to the estate agent to pick up some details (as it wasn't on-line a week after the board had gone up for some reason). Obviously I didn't say who I was, I just said I'd seen the board and couldn't see it on-line. The Estate agent (who was being paid £££ to sell it Hmm) said "It's on the market at (gave the the price). It needs some modernising". Now I've been in the house hundreds of times and - whereas we all have our own tastes in terms of decor - there is nothing in that house that needs to be done. Everything is spick and span and clean and fresh and all the decor is really neutral. She was really hot on replacing and updating things (new windows last year, for example). Yet these there the Estate Agent's first words. Nothing about it having 3 huge bedrooms, a smashing garden, being detached, excellent location, etc,etc,etc,. I made a mental note never to use that Estate Agent, but it was her opening line! Shock

SushiGo · 24/04/2019 13:46

We were totally up for a bit if refurbishment as first time buyers bit 'done' houses were virtually the same price as ones where the bathroom suite was brown (except the sink which was white) and the rest of the house was in the same state...

We were maxing out to afford a 3 bed home at all (already had dc - not unusual now for ftb) so how manageable, financially and practically the level of work that needed doing became a factor.

A lot of the houses we decided against sat on the market a long time with totally unrealistic prices in a sellers market.

We're getting our place ready to sell, and conscious that it's a buyers market now so planning to do pretty much everything that is needed.

I'm curious as to what work you think needs doing if bathroom/kitchen is okay?

plantingandpotting · 24/04/2019 13:59

@FiveShelties Can I ask why OIEO puts you off? Genuinely interested...

Also if you have 5 shelties I'm ever so jealous Grin

bigKiteFlying · 24/04/2019 14:05

As the PP said with the 'too small' room whose dimensions had already been clearly advised

We had a few viewing on one estate when first time buying - all booked prior to seeing first fitting in as many as we could over a weekend.

Third bedroom you couldn't fit a single bed it was a small room but the problem was the stairs taking out a chunk of the room. It wasn't obvious in the pictures and floor plans. Many had cots and toddler bed others metal shelves as beds or other homemade beds and no storage.

It soon became clear it was an entire estate problem meaning half the catchment we were looking at was out.

Same area a new build town house– layout looked great wasn’t till you walked into the front door it became clear there were four doors all opening into the same space and stunning master bedroom has a roof so low that DH who isn't tall for a guy could only stand to full height in one place.

Estate agents couldn’t see the issues in either case and kept pushing them at us.

Floatingfancy · 24/04/2019 14:11

Can I ask why OIEO puts you off? Genuinely interested

I find it entitled. Your house is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. It really gets my back up tbh.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.